Itinera is a project of the VMW that visualizes the travels and social networks of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European intellectuals and artists, as well as the objects they made and encountered. Enabled by the interactivity of the interface, the user may toggle between agents, maps, and chronology, each of which visualizes the relationships each agent has with other agents and places at a given time. While taking care to map the well trodden sites of major capital cities, Itinera emphasizes the mobilty, object collection, and site documentation in less documented areas as well, including but not limited to South and Central America, Greece, Egypt, and the Near East. The visualizations offered through Itinera offer a platform through which contemporary scholars may engage with contemporary issues revolving around environment and space-making, mobility and exchange, and visualization of historical data.
Most recently, under project manager Lily Brewer and project directors Alison Langmead and Drew Armstrong, it has focused on the complexities of site specificity given the agent's historical data, as revealed by primary source material such as letters written during travel or secondary material documented in encyclopedias of travels. Emphasizing the critical importance of the integrity of historical scholarship, Itinera overlays historical research methods to map and theorize on 17th and 18th site-specificity and human mobility. The aims of Itinera are to visually demonstrate traditional data to aid in and in the aid of traditional methods of historical scholarship. In mapping agents, their objects, and sites, Itinera is designed to enable scholars to engage with cultural tourism through an interactive, digital environment in the hopes of generating new insights.
